EUROPEAN UNIONTHE COUNCIL

Brussels, 1 July 1998 (13.07)

9809/98 (OR. d)

LIMITE

CK4 27

ASIM 170

NOTE

from : Presidency

to : K4 Committee

Subject: Strategy paper on immigration
and asylum policy

1. The Austrian Presidency hereby submits
a draft strategy paper which, following an in-depth discussion
in the relevant working parties, could ultimately be officially
noted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council as a basis for the
European Union's future immigration policy.

2. The delegations on the K4 Committee
are requested to discuss this paper and also to comment on it
in writing by the beginning of September. On the basis of the
discussion and these comments, a revised version will then be
forwarded to the Immigration, Asylum and Visa Working Parties,
with a request for them each to go through the text from their
own specialised point of view. The result of this review is to
be submitted in December 1998 to the Council - either as an agreed
outcome or as an interim progress report on the discussion.

1. Introduction

1. In 1991, the European Commission
established an initiative to determine an immigration policy strategy
at European level, by way of two communications - on the right
of asylum and immigration. A Maastricht European Council work
programme from the same year focused on the harmonisation of immigration
and asylum policies.

2. In December 1992 the Edinburgh European
Council adopted a declaration of principles on immigration policy,
which was prompted by the increase in migration from East to West
in the previous three years following the fall of the iron curtain
and, especially, by the mass exodus from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
declaration was particularly in favour of more effective management
of migratory movements to the Member States of the European Union.

3. This declaration of principles included
some specific strategic points, which were to

serve as guidance in future European
migration policy; among them is the common

will to

- reduce the causes of migration by
taking appropriate measures vis-à-vis the

regions of origin,

- develop a common policy for temporary
protection of displaced persons,

- combat illegal immigration,

- enter into agreements with States
of origin and transit,

- ratify the Dublin Convention, and

- adopt the External Frontiers Convention.

4. The declaration of principles had
no lasting influence on the European Community's migration and
asylum policy in following years. The specific declarations of
intent were hardly implemented, and the general ones were not
laid down in clear programmes and action plans. In 1994 the European
Commission therefore made a new, comprehensive attempt to develop
an immigration policy approach for the European Union by submitting
a very extensive and substantial communication to the Council
and to the European Parliament on immigration and asylum policy.
The purpose of this first consistent strategic immigration approach
at European level was to find an integrated and coherent response
to actual developments, lay down the key elements of effective
migration management and define a new framework for Union action
in this field.

5. The
European Commission defined here as key elements:

- activities to counter migratory pressure;

- effective control of immigration,
and

- strengthening of the position of legal
immigrants.

As regards the extent to which this
approach has been implemented, it can be ascertained after four
years that clearly visible and measurable real achievements have
been made only in individual aspects of the three areas. The outcome
of work in the Third Pillar - around 70 Council (legal) acts in
the field of immigration - should not be overlooked; this has
been a thoroughly respectable achievement and an essential step
towards approximation of the law in Europe. However, the European
Union has not really managed to influence sustainably the reality
of immigration in a manner that can be ascertained empirically.
Neither the potential will to emigrate nor actual emigration from
the main regions of origin has decreased in the past five years
(rather the opposite). Furthermore, neither the control activities
at the external borders of Schengen and the Union nor the Member
States' laws on aliens and asylum stop illegal immigration. The
incessant influx of illegal migrants and the effects of migration
crises on demographic policy have been major contributing factors
to the absence of any prospect, even now, of uniform EU-wide rights
of legal immigrants.

6. It is not the Commission - or the
Council and its working parties - which is responsible for this
situation. Most of the estimates and assumptions made in 1994
were correct; only a few analyses need to be revised in the light
of developments in recent years. They will be examined in greater
detail in the first part of the following section. The discrepancy
- which can be established without doubt - between what was claimed
and what has been implemented seems primarily due to the fact
that the strategy debate initiated by the Commission was not conducted
on a broad basis, no comprehensive political approach was laid
down, no operational work programme was derived therefrom and
no action plans following a uniform concept were developed and
implemented.

7. The European Union's activities in
the past few years have thus remained to a certain extent fragmentary,
have produced no lasting results in important areas, have sometimes
consumed too much energy in dealing with specific topical crises
and have lost political dynamism because, the overall framework
which could have guaranteed conclusive further development of
this policy area was lacking. At the same time, however, the strategy
for combating organised crime and the pre-accession strategy proved
that it was possible to develop and stringently implement such
medium-term strategies in the field of justice and home affairs.
It must therefore also be possible in the case of migration policy.

2. The European Union and the
migrations of the past decade

2.1. The forecasts from 1994 and
current trends

9. A systematic look at the Commission's
communication from 1994, by checking the statements made therein
against the reality of 1 998, shows that the basic conditions
for the migration policy have changed quite considerably in the
short period that has elapsed.

10. The initiatives taken in the Union
to harmonise the available data on migratory movements and improve
the quality of data (proposals 1 and 2 of the Commission's communication)
were only partly successful. The results obtained by CIREA and
CIREFI are still not fully satisfactory and the systems are not
efficient enough when specific policy-related questions need to
be answered quickly and/or precisely. For example, the Union is
still not able to give accurate information regarding the number
of third country nationals illegally on the territory of its Member
States or exact details of asylum-seekers and immigrants who have
disappeared to an unknown destination, or to determine empirically
the weaknesses of external border controls at any particular time.

11. One of the main problems of the
situation prior to 1995, i.e. the tendency towards an increasing
influx of asylum-seekers (proposal 6), seems to have been resolved.
Since 1994 numbers of asylum-seekers have stabilised, even following
a constant slight downward trend - but without a drop in the total
number of illegal immigrants. Thus, there is cause to assume that
the asylum reforms in many countries now make it less attractive
for illegal immigrants to seek asylum, so that many of them now
refrain from taking this step - at least as long as they are not
discovered by the aliens police of the country of immigration.

12. Despite many legislative amendments
in the Member States, it has been practically impossible to achieve
the really crucial breakthrough in preventing or reducing the
number of manifestly unfounded applications for asylum (proposal
7). The EU States have thus not achieved any real success in combating
abuse of the right of asylum. The undoubtedly important progress
in harmonising the concept of refugee and in procedural rules
could only make a limited contribution towards solving this problem.
The same applies to the speeding up of procedures, which has been
incorporated into various national laws.

13. The concept of temporary admission
(proposal 8-10), which was highly topical in 1994, at first got
bogged down at the very outset and - contrary to expectations
at the time - has not to date been implemented in the Union. This
does not only mean that a legal provision is still lacking; possibly
more significant for the migration situation in Europe is the
fact that an essential element of the concept - the decision on
termination of protected status and the organised return, approved
by all parties, of persons admitted - could not be implemented
throughout Europe in the case of Bosnian refugees, and possibly
cannot be implemented in such periods of mass exodus. This realisation
and doubts about the wisdom of cooperating in a spirit of solidarity
at all, which obviously still exist in some cases, admittedly
shake such a concept to its foundations.

14. In general, however, political interest
is no longer focused so much on asylum questions and problems
of temporary protection, but more on general questions of migration,
problems of combating facilitator networks and expulsion issues.
In that respect the priorities of an overall approach differ today
from those in 1994. In the light of the greater proportion of
illegal immigrants and the high professionalism of facilitator
organisations, this aspect now has particular priority. A further
priority seems to be the determination of the status of legal
immigrants who are to be integrated by the host society.

15. The initiatives envisaged in 1994
to reduce the worldwide migration pressure (proposal 3) were not
started systematically. In the years since then it has been possible
on just one occasion to prevent a mass exodus through a successful
package of measures - in Albania in 1997. However, this exemplary
case has not yet been systematically analysed. Experiences in
connection with the influx of Kurds and with Kosovo tend to give
rise to scepticism.

16. The proposal that a partial reduction
in migration pressure be brought about by means of "safety
valves" in the form of immigration quotas, admission of those
temporarily employed and humanitarian justifications for immigration
(proposal 4 and 5) was not adopted into States' practice. The
intensifying labour market situation in the Member States and
the continuing high migratory pressure from family reunification
and illegally facilitated third country nationals made any movement
in this area impossible and apparently demanded exclusive concentration
on restrictive measures.

17. A check on implementation of the
proposed list of measures to prevent illegal immigration set out
in the 1994 paper (proposal 11-14) reveals a list of still unresolved
issues. Cooperation with the transit States has not succeeded
in stopping the influx of illegal migrants, but has influenced
the volumes concerned; it has not been possible to force back
on a lasting basis the international criminal organisations trafficking
in human beings; external border controls have been neither standardised
nor intensified within the Union (although there has undoubtedly
been progress in the Schengen context); reciprocal monitoring
initiatives have hardly been developed; only in visa policy and
practice is it possible to identify clear progress.

18. Effective measures to combat illegal
employment (proposal 13) have still not been taken. However, to
reduce the pull factors of illegal migration and to promote social
stabilisation of the host societies, this aspect is extremely
important, and increasingly so in view of unemployment trends.
If the Union now devotes itself to fighting unemployment as a
priority objective, considerable importance will also have to
be attached in this context to a strategy to counter illegal immigration.

19. The speeding up of the voluntary
return of illegal immigrants was as strikingly unsuccessful as
the steps taken to establish the widest possible network of readmission
agreements (proposal 15 to 17). A problem hardly referred to in
the 1994 paper was the increasing refusal of a growing number
of States of origin to take back their own nationals from the
country which they had entered illegally.

20. This survey of the proposals made
in 1994 - and the list is not complete - would in itself be sufficient
grounds for a new initiative to develop a European migration strategy.
But it is not the only reason: another one lies in the new longer-term
trends described below, which were not discussed explicitly in
the 1994 paper.

2.2 Longer-term new development trends

21. All over the world, expenditure
on development aid is falling and poor areas of the world are
continuing to decline dramatically; developments in Africa as
a whole provide evidence that the situation there is now much
worse than a decade ago. The trends towards concentration and
therefore the explosion of unemployment in large parts of the
Third World are increasing. Each year 80 million young people
reach working age there and 100 million people migrate in this
part of the world to the large metropolitan centres, without really
having any chance of an occupation offering a secure livelihood.
For migration towards the rich, especially Western European, States,
this means that total immigration continues to exceed 1,5 million
immigrants per annum, and the proportion of illegal immigrants
in this total has clearly increased. It must now be assumed that
every other immigrant in the first world is there illegally.

22. At the end of the 1980s and in the
first two years of this decade, immigration to Western Europe
attained dimensions unprecedented since the Second World War,
especially because of the collapse of the Eastern European regimes
and the war in the Balkans. Almost 10 million people left their
homes over a five-year period and about four million of them came
to Western Europe. In this situation the States of Western Europe
rapidly devised cooperation arrangements, which resulted in parallel
migration policy strategies. Starting from very informal reflections
by experts, which led to concepts that at the time seemed very
radical, a series of innovations were implemented in the legislations
of Western Europe between 1991 and 1993: the principle of the
safe country of origin and the third State principle in the right
of asylum, the concept of safe internal refuge areas in the persecuting
State, the concept of the Dublin Convention, harmonisation of
visa policy, the concept of temporary protection of persons displaced
from war-zones, the expansion of external border controls in the
Schengen area, etc. However, this special situation and the resulting
reform drive essentially ended in 1994.

23. The trend towards standardisation
primarily covered asylum issues, where more or less identical
laws now exist in Europe, but also the field of visas and travel
documents, where there was large-scale harmonisation. However,
as regards other

aspects of migration, particularly
in the context of immigration regulations, only

sporadic advances were made and no harmonised
European approach was implemented. This applies particularly to
fields in which work did not progress beyond the initial stages
- for instance, temporary protection, burden-sharing, border controls
- and most especially to areas in which hardly any developments
occurred - for example, the juridical status of legal immigrants,
the setting of immigration quotas, uniform treatment of family
reunification or the regulation of seasonal labour. Systematic
completion of these fragmentary results would therefore be appropriate.

24. Five years after it began, the reform
approach to European migration regulations was therefore composed
of parts that had either been concluded or shelved as not feasible.
Since then no new approach has been made. It is therefore quite
obvious that a new start should be made in assessing the new developments
and taking them as the occasion for developing a new strategy.

25. In this context, the measures laid
down at the time can certainly be accepted as final. No European
country today would consider going it alone in opening up the
right of asylum, making access easier for migrant workers or increasing
social security benefits for immigrants. Such topics do not therefore
need to be discussed even at regular intervals. It is far more
useful to concentrate on the unresolved and new issues: topics
and approaches responding to the latest trends and not based on
the requirements of "old" waves of immigration.

26. Since the beginning of the 1 990s,
a series of new trends have in
fact become apparent. This applies,
for instance, in connection with exodus movements. The bipolarity
between the Western and communist world has disappeared, together
with all those conflicts attributable to it, but has been replaced
by a clear increase in local, nationalistic conflicts and the
splintering of States into smaller countries with the associated
internal displacements of population. Whereas, formerly, suppression
by an authoritarian regime was the main cause of the exodus of
asylum-seekers to Western Europe, the largest single factor now
giving rise to such migratory movements is inter-ethnic persecution
and displacement by non-governmental power-brokers.

8

27. In line with these developments,
the Geneva Convention has in part become less applicable to the
problem situations actually existing. It was unquestionably geared
to refugees who were displaced by authoritarian government regimes
(of the communist world or less-developed States), but it is not
at all geared to displacement by inter-ethnic conflicts or to
coping with illegal immigration from many crisis regions, especially
in the Third World. Thus, new questions arise and need a response.

28. In view of developments over the
past few years, traditional migration policy management patterns
must also be reconsidered: How effective is a common visa policy,
when most immigrants arrive illegally without a visa in
any case? What alternative do
we have to the traditional approach whereby illegal aliens are
returned to their homeland, when native countries are becoming
increasingly difficult to ascertain or do not take back their
citizens? What is the consequence if the power of integration
of the host States is primarily used by illegal immigrants who
crowd out those who take the legal path?

29. Finally, the question arises as
to how strong are the push factors in the principal States of
emigration and the social and economic pull factors in
the host countries, and to what
extent it seems possible to counteract them merely by the destination
countries' traditional national immigration strategies under the
law governing aliens -border control, visa system, fixing of quotas,
aliens police force, etc.

2.3. Changed political structures

30. Since the beginning of the 1990s,
the political environment for migration policy has also changed
in Europe:

It is now already necessary to recall
that at the beginning of
the 1
990s there was no Europe-wide institutional cooperation as it
currently exists under the Maastricht Treaty and is to be further
developed under the Amsterdam Treaty.

- At that time there was no institutionalised
cooperation between the rich

Western European States and their
Central and Eastern European neighbours as it now exists under
the Third pillar - the pre-accession strategy - but also in some
other contexts.

9

- There was at that time no operational
Schengen system and it is important in this respect that the Schengen
club of 5 States has developed into 15 States. This club is in
the process of creating a unified European migration area surrounded
by a uniformly controlled border.

- The States of Central and Eastern
Europe have grown into a new role. For Western Europe they are
no longer States which produce refugees, but cooperating neighbours
gradually adjusting to the standards of the Western European States.

- The intergovernmental and international
fora in which migration policy questions are discussed have become
innumerable. According to a survey recently conducted in the European
context, at least 50 different cooperation fora operate in Europe.
largely uncoordinated and independently of one another.

- Finally, Europe's relationship with
the traditional host States in the migration policy context has
changed completely: although the USA (together with Canada and
Australia) was a major host country for onward migrants up to
the 1980s, it has lost this function and is now important more
in the political context of the causes of emigration movements
and as a cooperation partner in
crisis management.

31. In the light of these changes the
main question arising is whether it can still be useful, as in
the last stage of migration policy reform, to implement national
- though coordinated - amendments to the law, or whether it would
not seem more appropriate to amend the regulations at EU level
- especially after the integration of Schengen and in accordance
with the initiated enlargement process. However, it must in any
case be a European system, i.e. one organised jointly by the States
of Europe and outwardly autonomous. Solutions can only be European,
and in two senses: on the one hand, the migration problems in
Europe can be solved only by all its countries acting together
and, on the other, Europe will have to solve these problems itself
and not expect any help from outside.32. Specifically in the light
of the imminent entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, new
conditions therefor become apparent which the Member States consider
to be an obvious improvement. The question as to the institutional
and procedural context in which the decision-making process in
European migration policy will in future take place has now been
answered. The task now arises of optimising from the outset the
efficiency, speed of decision-making and the combined formulation
of these institutions' objectives and guaranteeing the best possible
result by concentrating on one single decision-making system.
It is probably also important, in the light of the commitment
made at Cardiff to a citizen-oriented Union, to make progress
in the field of migration, which affects citizens with particular
directness.

33. Some developments in the early 1990s
have enabled new and important experiences in migration policy
to be acquired, so that a much more sober and pragmatic approach
to migration questions can perhaps be found than was possible
when the initial surprise came at the beginning of the decade.
Lessons drawn from the cases of Bosnia, Albania, the influx of
Kurds, etc. offer important experiences which can now be incorporated
into a strategy.

34. For example, experience has shown
- especially in the context of the Bosnia conflict, the major
migration catastrophe of the 1990s - that the European Union with
the instruments hitherto at its disposal is obviously not able
to prevent conflicts or to intervene in them purposefully and
early. Yet, with regard to migration, Europe was severely hit
by the consequences of the conflict, a fact which clearly shows
the need to develop instruments of prevention and control.

35. Conversely, regulations such as
those of the Dayton Agreement have proved entirely successful
in practice and shown that such instruments are capable, for example,
of changing substantially the UNHCR's basic policy: thus, it can
be perceived that, for instance, the UNHCR is now clearly committed
to the repatriation of displaced persons, in contrast to earlier
positions, and increasingly emphasises local solutions to problems,
rather than resolving problems by accepting flows of refugees
into third States. The new role of the OSCE, although obviously
not yet very well defined, should also be mentioned here.

36. The sustained decline in asylum-seekers
to about a quarter of the peak reached in the early 1990s has
clearly eased the political discussion of asylum issues. Dublin
and Eurodac show that progress is possible. Cooperative solutions
developed jointly by several States are therefore just as conceivable
today as cooperative solutions by States together with the UNHCR.
However, the phenomenon whereby such joint solutions can also
be undermined now exists - for example, a person entering the
country initially avoids submitting an application for asylum,
although he intends to stay on a permanent basis and apply subsequently.

37. On the other hand, European States
today face very specific and rapidly growing new problems, especially
in the context of illegal migration, the fight against which is
evidently not proving successful: it is becoming increasingly
obvious to decision-makers that the solutions cannot be found
solely in the law governing asylum and aliens or within the competence
of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, but require cooperative
transnational and comprehensive multi-disciplinary approaches.

38. Sections 3, 4 and 5 below now attempt
to develop an approach on the basis of this analysis: first, the
main points not connected with a particular subject are outlined,
then the major problem areas set out individually - with some
particularly topical issues specifically singled out - and, finally,
points condensed from it for a plan of work.

3. Outline for a reassessment
of European migration policy

39. National interests still dominate
the process of decision-making in the European Union's migration
policy. This is an anachronism insofar as it has in any case become
clear in the decade now ending that migration policy challenges
always concerned the Union as a whole and did not refer exclusively
to one country. Three examples providing clear evidence of this
are: the exodus of Croats, Bosnians and Kosovars; the illegal
immigration of Iraqis, Kurds and other migrants accompanying them,
organised on a large scale; and the emigration movement from the
Maghreb. It is therefore obviously essential for a uniform European
policy concept to be developed. The European Union should devise
its future immigration policy as an entity and cannot expect such
a policy to develop automatically, so to speak, from the product
of national decisions.

40. In view of

- the highly complex topics involved
in migration policy,

- the fact that crisis situations repeatedly
occur, calling for a response from the European Union,

- the experiences of the past few years,
in which the inadequate reaction to such crises was an ad hoc
package of measures not set in any overall strategic context,
and

- the realisation that one-dimensional,
short-term or situation-related measures led to neither the desired
result in the specific case, nor the necessary structural improvements,

this concept must develop as a consistent,
medium-term migration policy strategy for the European Union.
It can take as its basis the results of the Edinburgh summit in
1992 and the European Commission's communication on immigration
and asylum policies from 1 994, and thus ensure continuity.

41. The European Union's migration
policy must obviously cover the following areas, __

irrespective of specific topical events
and short-term developments:

reduction of migratory pressure
in the main countries of origin of immigrants

- intervention in conflict regions

- extension of development aid and economic
cooperation

- political cooperation between host
States and States of origin

- raising of human rights standards

reduction of illegal immigration
and suppression of illegal immigration networks, especially in
connection with the fight against organised crime

immigration control

- improvement and standardisation of
data capture

- Europe-wide quota system for new immigration

- standardisation of rules governing
the migration of third country nationals, and especially those
governing family reunification

- limitation and considered use of transfer
payments to immigrants

- combating of illegal unemployment

overall concept of control of legal
entry, at all stages of movements of persons:

- in the country of departure at the
time of granting the visa,

- in transit by checks on transport
undertakings,

- in the transit States by implementation
of the EU acquis,

- in EU external border controls,

- by security nets at the internal borders,

- in the country of destination with
swift procedures (under the law governing asylum and aliens)

determination of the status of legal
immigrants with a view to promoting integration

- integration prograremes which are
socially acceptable to the host States

- reintegration programmes with international
support

- reform of the asylum application procedure
and transition from protection

concepts based only on the rule of law
to include politically oriented concepts

- reduction of manifestly unfounded
applications for asylum

agreements with States of origin
and transit States

- in the field of prevention, and

- with regard to effective repatriation

"Europeanisation" of migration
policy

42. In view of the current challenges,
some particularly topical themes in these areas can be singled
out, on which work should be commenced immediately and be concluded
before the turn of the century:

- the need to link all migration-related
decisions within the EU structures (especially in the light of
Amsterdam);

- comprehensive assessment of third
States with regard to immigration management by the Union vis-à-vis
these States;

- the development of legal instruments
and procedures which are safe from abuse and actually make it
possible for migration policy objectives to be attained;

- the development of an external borders
policy for which there is joint responsibility;

- the establishment of EU asylum law
which is independent, uniform, comprehensive and meets today's
requirements rather than those of a geopolitically outdated situation;

- the consistent and efficient repatriation
of illegal immigrants.

43. In drawing up this plan, it is important
also to be aware that new methodical approaches will have to be
selected. One approach consists of aiming at multi-dimensional
solutions and not being confined to legal questions. Moreover,
it is not expected that such a new concept can be drawn up rapidly;
the necessary time must be taken and deadlines not fixed hastily.
Science, scientific policy advice and both sides of industry could
also be involved in drawing up the plan. Finally, the emphasis
should initially not be on the form such a plan may take, but
on questions of content.

44.First of all, there is a
backlog demand for Europe-wide harmonisation of national legislation
on migration. The migration policy regulations in the individual
Member States of the Union currently still differ so much that
such a policy cannot operate satisfactorily in the light of the
global challenges and greater cohesiveness of the Union in economic
and social policy areas. This must be taken into account if the
further development of the Union is not to be jeopardised from
an economic, social and democratic point of view.

45. It is, moreover, a question of reforming
the decision-making structures with regard to EU migration policy.
The present structures are relatively clumsy, so that it is impossible
for the Union to react quickly and effectively to current events.
This was apparent both from the large wave of migration from the
former Yugoslavia and from the reaction to the relatively minor
occasion of ships of migrants landing in Southern

Europe: in some cases there was little
reaction, and in others over-reaction; internal conflicts arose
on many levels, preventing obviously outstanding questions from
being resolved; the measures finally taken had hardly any appreciable
effect on the actual migratory movements. Clearer rules, more
efficient decision-making structures, and more rapid and sustained
reactions are therefore needed in this context.

46. The decision-making competences
in the European Union's migration policy, established over many
years, are - even after entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty
- fragmented, harbour the risk of parallel, opposing or uncoordinated
activities, and cannot on the whole be properly controlled by
an overall plan. An organisational reform is necessary, starting
simultaneously in several areas:

- simplification of the Council's and
Commission's complicated cooperation machinery,

- concentration of all Commission competences
in one hand and in one system,

- streamlining and paring of work structures
with regard to both working parties and the Council and Commission
administrations,

- linking migration policy decisions
with the priorities of the Union's funding programmes and foreign
policy.

47. If a single Commissioner were competent
for all migration policy questions, progress could be as significant
as was the case a few years ago when one Commissioner took responsibility
for the Third Pillar. The current breakdown among various Commissioners
of migration law issues, humanitarian aid, free movement of people
and external relations with reference to migration is at any rate
not an optimum situation. Obviously, the holder of such a function
then needs clear terms of reference for establishing a comprehensive
migration policy.

48. Standardisation at institutional
level should however not only affect the Commission, but the entire
organisational structure at Community and intergovernmental level.
The complete merging of the Schengen institutions into a unified
EU structure, renunciation of any special organisations or separate
bodies with or without a legal personality, and the flattening
of the current decision-making pyramid from the working parties
to the Council are necessary if an effective policy is in fact
to be established.

49. Finally, standardisation is necessary
not only at institutional level but also with regard to procedures
and rules of law. The current rules on migration consist of independent
Conventions, Third Pillar legal acts of different forms and obscurely
related to one another and also, in future, acts based on the
Amsterdam Treaty. It is necessary in this respect to establish
a consistent, simple EU legal system, broken down into steps.

50. On the basis of the analysis provided
in the first part of this paper and the theses set out here, the
Council Presidency could work out in detail, together with the
Commissioner now primarily responsible in this field within the
Commission, the basic outlines of the required new strategy. If
this draft is to fulfil its objective, it must contain the essential
aspects of a migration strategy for the European Union over the
next decade, a list of topical and priority tasks derived therefrom
and, for each task, a plan of work with deadlines. This demand
was also made by the European Council in Cardiff and an attempt
is made in Parts 4 and 5 to develop appropriate approaches.

4. Global approach

4.1. Reduction of migratory pressure
in the main countries of origin

51. The reduction of migratory pressure
calls for a coordinated policy which extends far beyond the narrow
field of policy on aliens, asylum, immigration and border controls,
and also covers international relations and development aid.

52. No illusions can be entertained
with regard to the huge volume of such a project; this aspect
of the strategy must incorporate world-wide all the main regions
of origin of immigrants. In view of the breadth of this field,
slow progress will have to be accepted, since the possibilities
of - for example - eliminating the economic causes of migration
from the Third World are undoubtedly very limited. The same applies
to demographic and environmental factors and to durable change
in the human rights situation.

53. To reduce migratory pressure, it
is particularly necessary in areas close to Europe to take action
in regions where internal ethnic crises threaten to escalate.
From experience with the Bosnian war, such actions are potentially
quite successful, but only if they are not conducted on a political
level but involve as broad a range of activities as possible.

54. It will be indispensable for Europe
to act independently in future in this field and not to confine
itself to joining in the activities of other bodies. Over the
past few years it has become apparent that the effects on Europe
of migration from various conflicts were dramatic, though the
impact on other parties involved was less crucial, and that conflict
resolution - for instance, a certain ethnic division of Bosnia
- had particularly serious consequences for Europe from the point
of view of migration policy. It is therefore quite legitimate
for Europe to take its own decisions regarding intervention in
such impending crises.

55. However, direct influence and presence
is necessary, not only for the prevention and rapid containment
of conflicts, but also for the restoration of normality which
makes it possible for displaced persons to return and stabilises
regions in the longer term. In this respect, action taken by the
European Union and its Member States is not only useful and necessary
but also important in the context of coping in a spirit of solidarity
with the consequences of mass exodus movements.

56. An expansion of development aid
and economic cooperation with the main regions of emigration is
essential. There can however be no illusions that such efforts
will result in the short term in curbing emigration; the opposite
may in fact be the case: initially, an economic boom potentially
leads to increased emigration from the urban areas of the Third
World. However, in the medium term - and this means a period of
only a few years - emigration figures fall considerably.

57. In view of such interconnections,
crisis prevention, intervention and economic aid to poor States
are not a substitute for restrictions on immigration and border
controls, but both paths must be followed in parallel.

58. It must be recognised that a successful
migration policy can never be implemented solely by one party
involved in this process. The formerly socialist countries were
unable to prevent emigration as long as the West offered good
conditions of admission, and neither can the Western European
States now prevent immigration merely with border controls and
rules of law. Here, political cooperation between host countries,
transit States and States of origin is the only promising path.

59. An integrated approach must be followed,
to the extent that just about all the EU's bilateral agreements
with third States must incorporate the migration aspect. For instance,
economic aid will have to be made dependent on visa questions,
greater border-crossing facility on guarantees of readmission,
air connections on border-control standards, and willingness to
provide economic cooperation on effective measures to reduce push
factors.

60. Here, a model of concentric circles
of migration policy could replace that of "fortress Europe".
For obvious reasons, the Schengen States currently lay down the
most intensive control measures. Their neighbours (essentially
the associated States and perhaps also the Mediterranean area)
should gradually be linked into a similar system which should
be brought increasingly into line with the first circle's standards,
particularly with regard to visa, border control and readmission
policies. A third circle of States (CIS area, Turkey and North
Africa) will then concentrate primarily on transit checks and
combating facilitator networks, and a fourth circle (Middle East,
China, black Africa) on eliminating push factors.

61. In the system as a whole, meeting
the obligations arising in each respective role should have positiveconsequences for the country concerned: for example, the
second circle must meet Schengen standards as a precondition for
EU membership; for the third circle, intensified economic cooperation
is linked to the fulfilment of their obligations; and the fourth
circle, the extent of development aid granted can be assessed
on that basis.

62. Actually raising human rights standards
in the States producing the most emigrants undoubtedly also makes
an important contribution to migration management. However, there
is at present an obvious lack of effective international institutions
to enable this task to be carried out.. It is questionable how
useful a reassessment in the UN and, in particular, new approaches
in the allocation of the UNHCR's tasks could be the UNHCR is today
still concerned primarily with the situation of refugees in the
States of refuge and tends not to look at the States responsible
for displacing people or the push factors in the countries of
emigration. Concentrating on these issues too would certainly
be in line with the initial approach towards a new view of tasks
within the UNHCR.

63. An increase in the standards of
basic rights is, however, also of vital interest to the actual
immigrants concerned and to cooperation policy under the four-circles
model. It is a matter of building up by stages more effective
systems of asylum and protection against deportation.

4.2. Curbing illegal migration and
combating facilitator networks

64. Curbing illegal immigration and
facilitator networks must, in the current phase -which should
be fixed at around five years at least - be the main task of those
State institutions involved in the broadest sense with aliens
police matters.

65. It can only take place successfully
if the success of facilitator networks and illegal attempts at
immigration is consistently thwarted. One objective must be to
allow only those who take the legal path to immigrate and integrate.
However, all promises made to these persons must then also be
kept and they must be permanently integrated. Another objective
must consist in confiscating the proceeds from facilitator networks
by means of a package of appropriate measures and permanently
destroying the facilitators' economic basis.

66. The rapid processing of manifestly
unfounded applications for asylum and immigration is an integral
part of such a concept. It must thereby be clear that a quick
decision is possible only if the legal procedure has a framework
based on a timetable. It is not practical to involve more than
one administrative authority and one independent body of appeal.

67. The system must furthermore ensure
that asylum-seekers who are the subject of negative decisions,
rejected applicants for immigration and deported aliens who have
no protection against deportation leave the country and that they
cannot have access to the labour market and integration solely
on the basis of their prior residence as asylum-seekers.

68. Effective measures against criminal
facilitator networks are required and call for human resources
investments in the criminal investigation department, international
cooperation in analysis and in operational matters, severe penalties
for any facilitation activities carried out in return for payment,
revocation provisions for vehicles and the like, possibilities
of hot pursuit and observation across the border in question,
effective legal assistance provisions and the practice of unconditional
extradition. In all these areas there are still considerable shortcomings
at present.

69. Cooperation with States of origin
in determining and ensuring the identity of both facilitators
and those they smuggle in is an essential component of a successful
fight against crime. Bilateral agreements need to be concluded
which guarantee repatriation of the country's own nationals, whereby
the burden of proving nationality should not rest solely with
the expelling State, but confirmable means of establishing credibility
must suffice. States with a particularly high potential of illegal
emigrants must be induced to set up effective fingerprint files.

70. An international exchange of data
on the identity of facilitators, rejected asylum-seekers and illegal
immigrants is necessary. Requests for information from States
of immigration to States of prior residence must be answered.

>From the relevant elements already
developed or established with regard to the action plan for combating
organised crime, in connection with Europol, in the context of
the pre-accession pacts on organised crime and the United Nations'
initiative for combating facilitator networks, a global programme
should be drawn up, laying down levels and priorities and avoiding
duplication of work.

4.3. International cooperation to
manage migratory movements

72. As the European Commission stressed
back in 1994, improved collection and analysis of accurate migration
data is a necessary precondition for effective migration management.
In this connection, although good systems have been set up with
CIREFI and CIREA, what are still lacking are up-to-date, reliable
data on the specific potential emigrant figures in individual
major emigration countries, allowing for rapid analysis and strategy
development if necessary. Something else that is missing - in
addition to data on overall figures (i.e. for instance, number
of asylum-seekers or illegal border-crossers apprehended in a
particular year) - are longitudinal data (i.e. information on
the later fate of these persons, from the number of recognised
refugees to the number of persons who have actually been deported
or who have left the country following the negative conclusion
of the procedure). Finally, up-to-the-minute data in crisis situations
are lacking.

73. The idea of setting up a European
observatory for migration, discussed for some time, was obviously
not pursued any further, leading to the conclusion that rather
than assigning this task to an institution to be newly created,
the terms of reference of existing institutions could be expanded
along these lines. This could be further supplemented by a modern
technical system for transmitting existing data.

Immigration is generally dependent
on push and pull factors. This is a market mechanism in which
supply and demand can also be subjected to political influence.
Three instruments suited to managing migration are described below;
a fourth instrument is horizontal to the others, but its impact
is at least equally significant: the clear, targeted notification
of potential immigrants about immigration management measures,
which, from past experience, can itself have just as much effect
as the actual measures themselves.

75. In the same way as the traditional
countries of immigration, some European countries have proceeded
to set annual quotas for maximum possible numbers of immigrants.
These quota restrictions have on the whole proved effective, as
long as they remain to some extent within a realistic framework.
It should therefore be considered to what extent such quotas can
be resorted to throughout Europe, in which case a breakdown into
family reunification, new immigration for employment purposes
and special groups (such as students, business delegates, managers,
etc..) would be advisable.

76. If these quotas are set correspondingly
lower than the average immigration figures for the past few years,
they will prove effective. On the other hand it must be borne
in mind that they cannot be set at zero in a continent of immigration
without giving fresh impetus to illegal immigration. Nor can such
quota restrictions concern asylum-seekers, the granting of refugee
status or the admission of persons displaced from war-zones. However,
the numbers of recognised refugees and persons admitted must be
taken into account when the quotas are next fixed.

77. >From discussions in the past
few years it is clear that many countries do not wish to follow
this procedure. A practical solution must therefore enable a coordinated
system to be offered for those countries participating in it,
but without placing the other countries under any obligations.

78. The greatest challenge for Western
Europe's migration policy in the next decade is the momentum of
family reunification. On account of the policy on immigrant workers
followed in the Member States in the past few decades, an exceptionally
large group of single men have immigrated and now wish to fetch
their families or start new families. From a quantitative point
of view, the demand for family reunification will certainly account
for the major part of immigration pressure for a decade.

79. A coordinated European procedure
is advisable here. Family reunification will go ahead - as it
should. The annual figures, conditions (waiting times, accommodation,
income) and volume (nuclear family) must be determined on a uniform
basis if irregularities and secondary migrations are to be avoided.

80. Standardisation is important not
least with regard to questions of basic rights, as the Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg has to judge the standard of Article
8 of the ECHR by the legal situation in the Member States of the
Council of Europe.

81. A question not yet discussed to
any extent in the European context is how the system of transfer
payments to immigrants is to develop in future. Although it is
sporadically discussed and there have been standardisations (for
instance, in payments to asylum-seekers during the procedure or
in social welfare), no overall concept exists as yet.

82. The main issue here is to what extent
nationals of third countries may also be entitled to the substantial
social welfare benefits available in the Western European States
to their own nationals. While this is accepted in principle for
immigrant workers and their families who have been legally resident
for some time, the level of benefits to illegally resident persons
is for good reason not uniform and is often disputed for that
reason. Standardisation, especially in the case of such people
is however directly linked to the functioning of the Dublin Convention
and of readmission agreements.

83. If, however, the basic attitude
of the Western European countries of immigration is not to allow
illegal immigrants access either to high transfer payments or
to the labour market, they must find a consistent answer to how
they wish to deal with persons unable to find any lasting physical
basis of existence but who are resident in their territory.

84. Finally, an important area of immigration
management - more precisely, reduction of the importance of one
essential pull factor - is the development of effective measures
against illegal employment and illegal employers of third-country
nationals. The European Union has not to date gone beyond general
declarations of intent in this field.. One approach could be to
confiscate business proceeds acquired on the basis of illegal
employment, and especially social welfare charges evaded, and
use this income to encourage return.

4.4. Overall entry control concept

85. An effective entry control concept
cannot be based simply on controls at the border but must cover
every step taken by a third country national from the time he
begins his journey to the time he reaches his destination.

86. Management begins in the country
of origin when a visa is granted. In recent years considerable
progress has proved possible - initially in the Schengen context
and subsequently at EU level: to begin with, the lists of States
whose nationals require visas and those which do not, the technical
standardisation of visa stickers, a unified, Europe-wide communication
system linking visa authorities within the framework of the SIS
and a number of alignments in visa practice, particularly as regards
the requirements for the grant of visas.

87. Nonetheless, it must be admitted
that even in these standardised areas certain questions of detail
are still - or in the case of the visa list, once again - unresolved
and require an urgent solution. However, the entire system suffers
particularly from the fact that in practice the standardisation
covers only certain types of short-stay visas and no efforts have
yet been made to reduce the countless number of national visas
to a few types affording the same privileges in all Member States.
The issue to be tackled here is particularly the harmonisation
of medium- and long-term residence permits.

88. The situation with respect to transport
company control is also ambiguous: on the one hand, it has been
possible to introduce penalties for carriers into all Member States'
legislation, while on the other we must acknowledge that in some
respects these penalties differ considerably from one Member State
to another. What has to be done here is to define exactly the
duties of the carrier across the board and ensure that the same
penalty or the same assistance is applied in respect of a particular
infringement in every case.

89. The great majority of illegal immigrants
into the EU do not come directly from their home countries but
reach Union territory via third countries. It is therefore both
sensible and necessary to involve the transit States in a control
system. The process of cooperation currently being initiated with
the applicant countries offers a unique opportunity to make full
use of their control possibilities. In this connection, the earliest
possible fulfilment of the requirements particularly of Schengen-type
visa and external border control arrangements and comparable aliens
law is of particular importance for preparation of the accession
process.

90. The next filter in the control process
is the control carried out at the external borders of Union territory.
Here it is essential that the Schengen standard is implemented
in its entirety and constantly improved at all external European
Union borders.

91. The Schengen experience has in fact
taught us that the measures introduced internally to harmonise
security and aliens police provisions have in parallel with the
dismantling of internal borders also proved extremely effective.
Security nets in areas whose geographic or transport characteristics
mean that they are particularly exposed, spot checks in the hinterland,
unprompted by suspicion, and intensive cooperation on the part
of the authorities beyond the sphere of competence of the individual
State have proved their worth beyond any doubt.

92. Finally, an essential aspect of an effective
system of entry control must be as far as possible to prevent
the circumvention of the existing rules or to make their breach
unattractive. In this connection an important role is played by
the number and length of the procedures available to illegal immigrants
- Aliens Act procedures, procedures for the award of residence
permits, asylum procedures and appeals against sanctions. Here
it is not only a matter of reducing the number of manifestly unwarranted
asylum applications; procedures must also be tightened up - something
that has still not been managed anywhere in Europe - and speeded
up so that the temporary residence entitlement which normally
accompanies such a procedure is valid for such a short period
that it no longer acts as a draw in
its own right. A comprehensive system
would undoubtedly be extremely helpful whereby in every case where
the border is crossed in other than the appropriate manner the
status quo is first restored -
i.e. the individual is put back on the other side of the border
and any procedures are initiated only after that has been done.

4.5. Regulating the position of legal
immigrants

93. In its 1994 communication the Commission
attached a great deal of importance to this area; almost a quarter
of the text is devoted to such problems. If one takes a closer
look at the analyses and proposals made to strengthen integration
policy vis-à-vis legal immigrants, to improve the position
of third country nationals who are legally resident in Union territory,
to improve the framework conditions for social integration, to
develop communications systems and fora for dialogue and to combat
racism and xenophobia, one is forced to admit that, with the
exception of the last-named sphere,
almost the entire range of suggestions has yet to be implemented.

94. This entire chapter of the original
Commission communication can therefore be incorporated as it stands
into an updated comprehensive concept for a European migration
strategy, which is in fact what has been done for the list of
individual proposals in the final part of this paper. This approach
is also possible because -with a single exception - the social,
political and economic framework conditions for integrating
third-country nationals legally resident in the Union have hardly
changed at all.

95. The sole exception is the labour
market: in recent years unemployment has risen even further in
the Member States of the European Union and it
is clear that no effective strategies
to combat this development have yet been found. The growth in
unemployment affects immigrants disproportionately since they
are disproportionately represented in vulnerable sectors and those
where few qualifications are required, and their lack of roots
in the host society gives them few defences against social pressures.

96. The challenge facing us in this
context is to show whether and how migration-policy measures can
be used to reduce unemployment. Reducing the potential workforce
is clearly only one factor in any such strategy. Measures to improve
individuals' level of qualification, economic exploitation of
the skills acquired during the stay in the host country and making
economic links possible were the individual to return to his country
of origin are just as important here as is the sustained fight
against all forms of the black economy profiting from the employment
of illegal aliens.

4.6. New refugee protection

97. As has been shown, the realities
of asylum in recent years have undergone a significant change.
These changes require wide-ranging reactions if
we are to respond adequately
to them, reactions which in any case go further than the undoubted
successes registered to date in European asylum policy (unification
of definitions of refugee and of procedures, stabilisation of
influxes of refugees).

98. The concept of temporary admission,
that of protection on grounds other than those of the Geneva Convention
(particularly that of inter-ethnic persecution) and the concept
of burden-sharing in crisis situations have not yet been implemented.
The points set out in the original Commission communication are
still relevant today for an overall strategy and we should return
to them speedily. When we do so, the questions of

- how and when a particular protection
and admission programme should begin and end,

- the need to resolve the status of
the persons admitted and [here something is missing in the
original p 28 bottom, ed.]

- the solidarity to be demonstrated
in cooperation between countries particularly affected can beanswered
by reference to the Commissions proposals received in the meantime
for two instruments. It is urgent that they be adopted.

99. No attempt has yet been made to
tackle the problem of whether and/or what extent the quantitatively
much more significant grounds for flight adduced nowadays - which
are not those set out in the Geneva Convention - should form the
basis of particular entry and residence rules. This is not simply
a matter of extending the list of persecution grounds in the Geneva
Convention; what is needed is a restructuring of the protection
system to take account of developments.

100. Such a system would also have to
include the other grounds for refoulement as well as the traditional
Geneva Convention asylum grounds, but also inter-ethnic conflicts,
persecution by others than the State, and other threats to life
on a large scale. However if such a step the implications are
far-reaching both for the type of procedure used to establish
whether the said circumstances obtain and for the status of the
person involved in these circumstances in a host country.

101. Unlike the traditional claims of
persecution by the State or those on particular grounds spelled
out in the Geneva Convention, these new threats are much more
difficult to prove or disprove; the administrative procedures
used hitherto are bound to fail and will be incapable of producing
satisfactory results for either side; the host States will be
inclined to rely on global assessment of a specific situation
rather than on the traditional persecution grounds, and see an
individual case rather as part of a larger phenomenon. But, as
a result, the possibilities and limits of a properly constituted
legal procedure focusing on the individual case will be exceeded.

102. In this case the question actually
arises as to whether a new approach should not also include initial
steps harking back to the beginnings of the development of asylum
law when the affording of protection was not seen as a subjective
individual right but rather as a political offer on the part of
the host country. Such an approach would allow potential reception
and protection States to come up with their offers in a much more
flexible and speedy way in certain circumstances. It would also
release a considerable volume of personnel and material resources
(which in quantitatively overburdened asylum procedure systems
are used unproductively for direct assistance in the procedure
and its administration) which could be much better used in direct
assistance to the persons taken in and to be afforded protection.
The asylum "business" could thus be transformed from
a huge machine which at considerable expense produces no result
at all in 90% of the problem cases it handles (viz. provides neither
protection nor status) back again into an instrument of speedy
assistance in the framework of the political possibilities.

103. A new direction of this kind can
only be implemented on the basis of a Convention supplementing,
amending or replacing the Geneva Convention. That formal factor
alone means that a strategic step of this kind will require a
fairly long preparation stage. However, that should not prevent
the circle of Member States, which have shouldered a substantial
share of the repercussions of the present asylum system from discussing
the question and introducing it in the UNHCR opinion-forming bodies.

104. Another matter which still needs
to be addressed in the European context is standardisation of
the system and level of care and benefits available in the asylum
procedure context or other reception and integration programmes.
Experience in recent years has shown that the differing level
of welfare provision for asylum seekers is one of the main causes
of secondary movements between Union Member States and has just
as much influence on the number of asylum seekers arriving in
the individual Member States as any geographical proximity or
historical

ties such States may have to the asylum
seeker's country of origin. The Dublin system and control of mass
migrations will be operable only if what is on offer is more or
less identical in all European States.

4.9. Priority issues

112. Among the areas presented, there
are currently a number of particularly pressing issues which need
to be addressed immediately at a European level. These are listed
once more in the following section, although it must be pointed
out that they are not additional projects which come on top of
the topics covered in sections 4.1 to 4.8, but are taken from
among the most urgent sub-projects in each corresponding area.

113. If the European Union wishes to
reduce the pressure of immigration then all migration-related
decisions within EU institutions must be linked up in a common
approach to take account of their mutual impact as swiftly as
possible. This not only concerns the area presently covered by
the third pillar, but also essential areas of the Union's "foreign
policy", bilateral relations with third countries particularly
in the economic field, association agreements, structural dialogues,
etc. There is a current tendency to regard and assess each of
these areas of policy in its own right, as separate issues; it
should be possible to curb this trend at least by the time the
Amsterdam Treaty comes into force.

114. In this context, development cooperation
and the Union's trade policy towards the main emigration areas
are of particular importance: for instance, it is at present impossible
to take any decisions involving Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the
countries of former Yugoslavia or Turkey without taking account
of the plainly visible tide of illegal migration currently taking
place. In addition, any decisions affecting the countries of former
Yugoslavia will have to tie in with the issues arising from the
return of the people who left those countries. Lastly, the Union's
measures to improve the situation in Kosovo require the immediate
involvement of the Commissioners responsible for migration issues
and the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

115. The comprehensive analytical assessment
of third countries with regard to the Union's immigration
policy towards citizens of those countries is still pending..
A more systematic approach by the EU would greatly help in resolving
the outstanding issues. If one goes back to the model developed
in international discussions which is based on concentric circles
and which allocates third countries to three or four circles,
whose various aspects also require various treatment in terms
of migration policy, then a fundamentally clearer idea of what
the Union's actual strategy for dealing with this issue might
emerge:

116. The first circle contains those
countries which do not cause emigration, but which -like the EU
Member States - have become target countries on account of their
advanced economic and political structures. Such countries can
be expected to assume all the obligations incumbent on a transit
country - full guarantees for those with refugee status, return
of all those who cross borders illegally, high levels of border
controls, a policy on visas -, which is why the freedom to issue
visas and close cooperation relations in these countries fall
primarily within the scope of the police and the security services.

117. In the current phase, this role
falls in practical terms to (all or some of) the applicants for
accession, which calls for a tightening up of the pre-accession
strategy towards the latter as far as issues of migration policy
are concerned. Linking financial benefits and the granting of
privileges to specific objectives in the migration field is clearly
prohibited. The aim of these countries will be to achieve total
freedom of movement with regard to those of their neighbouring
states which are EU members by fully applying EU immigration policy
and following Schengen guidelines.

118. The second circle contains transit
countries which no longer themselves create emigration to any
extent but which on account of a relatively stable internal economic
and political situation accept only very limited control procedures
and responsibility for migration policy. A cooperation and support
policv has been developed for such countries which should make
it easier for them to reach the next circle in the foreseeable
future. As it is still not possible to abandon visa restrictions
on such countries and bilateral agreements mostly concern the
repatriation of third country nationals in illegal transit, their
main tasks should be to concentrate on transit checks and combating
those who facilitate illegal immigration. A number of states in
the Budapest Group, the CIS area and the Mediterranean region
currently provide good examples of countries in this circle.

119. The third circle contains the emigration
countries, against which the whole range of migration policy measures
on the EU side needs to be effective, and which make it vital
that forms of cooperation be developed which will reduce migratory
pressure at all levels, i.e. not only in demographic, economic,
social and ecological terms but also in political and human rights
terms. Progress in these areas should serve as an important criterion
when development aid decisions are taken.

120. One of the most important tasks
in migration policy currently facing the European Union is effectively
combating the illegal, worldwide smuggling of human
beings.. Experience gained during the Action Plan on Iraq
and analysis of the illegal trafficking of human beings in various
Member States clearly show that the organised smuggling of human
beings has reached an unprecedented level and an unparalleled
degree of organisation. This is internationally organised crime
at the highest level of organisation and combating it will require
States to make concentrated use of every available means.

121. In this respect, it would be useful
to conduct a rapid review of the experiences of the Action Plan
on Iraq and the Schengen Task Force, to develop a more concise
strategy based on those elements which have proved successful,
to combine opportunities for cooperation between national police
forces, Europol and the Schengen System and to lead an all-out
attack throughout Europe against this form of crime over a period
of about two years. By exploiting every opportunity for cooperation,
including with third countries, a determined effort could be made
to combat those who arrange to smuggle people out of emigration
countries, the carriers and their helpers, those who organise
the journey and the people and groups who are involved in EU Member
States. The measures taken should range from applying a penal
and police policy of zero tolerance towards those who facilitate
illegal immigration, to effectively confiscating any proceeds,
seizing all assets used in facilitating and preventing anyone
from enjoying the rewards of such activities.

122. Following the partial success in
standardising and approximating legislation in recent years, focus
should now shift to further developing legal instruments and procedures
which are not open to misuse and which actually make it possible
to achieve objectives in migration policy. This is not the case
with the systems developed so far in asylum and immigration law,
which have proved far more useful in obtaining and securing medium-term
stays after illegal entry in the target country and have thus
already become pull factors in themselves.

123. Against this background, the further
development and implementation of the Dublin system, together
with the completion of Eurodac and the elimination of the delayed
effects of certain means of redress in national legislation undoubtedly
have an important part to play. This fact underlines the need
to bring the first of the abovementioned points to a successful
conclusion by the end of this year.

124. Another central concern of the
Union should be the development of an external border policy with
shared responsibility. What matters here is not so much whether
all Member States formally proceed with implementation of the
Schengen Agreement, but much more that the criteria on border
controls drawn up under Schengen should be applied by all Member
States during border checks, that there should be discussion on
this between States and cooperation on a joint approach. A vital
factor in this is the 515, which must be guaranteed to operate
smoothly when it comes to setting the date of the Amsterdam Treaty's
entry into force; for this reason, the working parties responsible
for this issue are under the greatest pressure to achieve results.

125. Another issue concerns the establishment
of an independent, uniform and comprehensive EU asylum law to
meet the requirements of today rather than of the geopolitical
situation of yesterday. What is required in the next year or two
is to conduct an analysis of the new challenges and of the developments
over the past decade in protecting refugees and applying the Geneva
Convention. It will then be possible to build on this and set
to work on a comprehensive legal instrument which is based on
minimum standards, a uniform notion of what constitutes a refugee,
a law on temporary protection and a shared belief in joint responsibility.

126. Of course, this approach should
also contain solutions for protecting refugees who have had to
leave their countries not on account of individual political persecution
by state entities, but because of civil war, ethnic displacement
and reprisals by non-state (military) authorities, and should
include protection against refoulement.

127. As far as these people are concerned,
not only are the elements in the Geneva Convention no longer adequate,
but also the procedure currently used is unsuitable in terms of
taking a demonstrable need for protection into consideration;
thirdly, the approach of the Geneva Convention, which by recognising
a person as a refugee severs the link with the country of origin
indefinitely and encourages him to settle permanently in the host
country, does not match the widely held idea that it should be
possible and internationally acceptable for such people to return
home within a foreseeable period of time.

128. A new approach of this kind must
also make room for the procedures and principles currently under
discussion on sharing responsibility evenly and on the basis of
solidarity. (This does not mean that we should wait until work
on the abovementioned law is completed; another perfectly suitable
way to proceed is to reach agreement on this now and to combine
the conclusions in a comprehensive regulation at some later date.)
Admitting refugees is only significant in terms of Western Europe's
overall performance and organising their admission is acceptable
to individual communities. A pattern of behaviour which, as in
the case of the crisis in Yugoslavia, places the burden of the
refugee problem on a small number of States in the long term will
have disadvantages for the whole of Europe.

129. In view of the high level of unemployment,
the budget problems and the socio-political difficulties facing
many West European countries, it will still be necessary to develop
programmes for the integration of refugees which are socially
acceptable to the host States.

130. In this connection such programmes
will have to relate not only to the, comparatively speaking, relatively
small number of recognised refugees but to all the immigrants
who have arrived in recent years and who have not yet integrated
into the host societies. It is a matter here not only of housing
and labour market policy, but also of questions of access to nationality,
the raising of the level of education and linguistic and cultural
integration. In political terms, the deciding issue in whether
or riot such integration is socially acceptable is above all whether
we manage to avoid a situation where the host society has to bear
financial burdens as a result of the immigration.

131. As far as the protection of refugees
is concerned, it is also important to develop a consistent approach
to the reintegration of displaced persons and refugees into their
countries of origin. This certainly involves more than individual
support for returnees and greater motivation to return home voluntarily:
it depends more on actively safeguarding the possibilities of
repatriation, if necessary using the same means of force employed
by the international community for maintaining peace and bringing
an end to conflicts as well. It is also a question of rapidly
applicable and rapidly effective financing systems for the repatriation
projects of Member States.

132. Lastly, in the context of a future
comprehensive legal instrument, it will also be necessary to clarify
the issue of whether the rule-of-law approach developed in Europe
in totally different administrative connections and the model
based on legally enforceable subjective rights are actually suitable
as the sole instrument in the refugee sphere. Consideration could
readily be given as well to a reform of the asylum sector with
a move to less rule-of-law-oriented approaches to protection and
more to politically-oriented approaches: alongside individual
decision-taking procedures an extended quota take-up procedure
could be established which, moreover, could also be combined fairly
easily with new burden-sharing mechanisms.

133. Finally, there is a need for a
concerted effort to ensure that illegal migrants are consistently
and efficiently reoatriated and to see to it that the return
of illegal migrants to their country of origin is enforced. This
requires a consistent policy on the part of the States of entry
as well as their cooperation in carrying out deportations and
a comprehensive system of rules on readmission and transit both
within the European Union and in relation to the applicant countries
and to problem States. Lastly, alternative solutions for the documentation
and establishment of the identity of undocumented illegal immigrants
also need to be discussed.

5. Operational plam:: Implementation
of the strategy bv the Council and the Commission

134. The tasks to be performed, and
the detailed elements of a European migration strategy were set
out in the preceding chapters. Below the tasks are systematically
grouped according to responsibility for performing them and according
to priorities, this summary being restricted to key words.

5.1. Specific initiatives by the
Council and, under the Amsterdam Treaty, by the Council together
with the Commission

(a) Adoption of a paper on European
migration strategy in the Justice and Home Affairs Council

(b) Drafting of a work programme with
priorities and action plans on that basis

(c) Development of a "model of
concentric migration policy circles", comprehensive assessment
of third states in the framework of that model and formulation
of a medium-term plan for each circle

(d) Full integration of the Schengen
"acquis" into the European Union and securing of the
smooth continuing effectiveness of all bodies and procedures established
thereunder

(e) Improvement of the current system
for collecting and analysing precise data, in particular with
respect to illegally present third-country nationals and to actual
repatriation; establishment of specific powers for collecting,
analysing and updating migration data

(m) Clarification of the procedure concerning
nor' deportable persons (who are not refugees or refoulement
cases)

(n) Introduction of a zero tolerance
policy towards persons who have entered illegally

(o) Measures to discover illegally present
aliens

(p) Finalisation of the Eurodac system
including all illegal entrants

(q) Increased effectiveness of the Dublin
system and extension of its scope

(r) Setting up and definition of the
instruments required for a permanent emergency task force which
can be mobilised immediately when particular immigration problems
arise

(5) Revision of the current institutional
and procedural framework, pooling of organisational resources

5.2. Specific initiatives
by the Commission (including the Council if necessary)

(a) Drawing up of a work plan and priorities
for the phase following the entry into force of the Amsterdam
Treaty

(b) Development of effective forms of
cross-pillar cooperation, overcoming of the institutional obstacles
still existing; in particular practical simplification of the
complicated mechanism for cooperation between the Council and
the Commission

(c} Networking of all decision-taking
fora in connection with migration policy

(d) Coordination of migration policy
decisions with those taken in connection with common foreign and
security policy

(e) Legal verification and systematisation
of the existing Community migration law or of the communitarised
migration law introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam

(f) Settlement of the position of legally
resident aliens on the basis of the proposals made in the 1994
communication from the Commission

(g) Establishment of instruments to
monitor the empirical reality of migration within the EU, in particular
ensuring that data are comparable and accurate

(h) Effective monitoring to ensure that
all measures decided in the migration policy sector are observed

(i} Concentration of all special funds
which exist under the current third pillar and clear consistency
with the relevant financing mechanisms in other sectors

(j) Linking of the fora for migration
policy decisions with those for financing decisions

(k) Development of a funding and management
programme for voluntary return

(I) Definition of the uniform visa list

(m) Concentration of all Commission
powers over migration in the hands of a single Commissioner

(n) Expansion of the current Task Force
into a full Directorate-General

5.3 . List of possible legal acts

(a) Eurodac Convention and Protocol
on the extension to aliens who have entered in an irregular manner

(r) Legal acts on the further uniformisation
of visa and residence documents

(s) Legal act concerning uniform penalties
against carriers

5.4. External relations

(a) Priority inclusion of all migration
policy aspects in the preparation of eastward enlargement, in
the specially regulated bilateral relations with other countries
and in the Transatlantic Dialogue

(b) Adoption of a joint action plan
to bring the applicant countries up to the migration policy standards
of the European Union

(c) Convention on the extension of the
Schengen externaL frontier control standards to the applicant
countries and monitoring of this development process

(d) Extension of the Dublin Convention
to the applicant countries

(e) Development of a network of cooperative
structures between the state agencies responsible for migration
in the emigration, transit and destination countries

(f) Early intervention through a series
of appropriate measures tested on the spot in the event of the
foreseeable occurrence of mass exodus and migration crises

(g) Establishment of contacts with the
relevant political and social authorities on the spot in the event
of a crisis

(h) Long-term activities to reduce the
pressure of emigration in selected regions of origin of illegal
immigrants and asylum applicants:

enhanced development of human rights,
democracy and rule of law influencing the population policy

gearing of trade, cooperation and development
aid to migration policy viewpoints as well

(i) Joint information policy vis-à-vis
those sections of the main emigration groups who are willing to
emigrate

(j) Agreement on the exchange of migration
data and on the provision of information in individual cases

(k) Complete system of deportation agreements
with States of transit and origin including ensuring that persons
whose identity and nationality is established by an EU document
are taken back

(I) Linking of bilateral agreements
in connection with the relaxation of visa requirements, the reduction
of border controls, transport links as well as economic cooperation
with repatriation agreements and migration control obligations

(m) formulation of a united position
vis-a-vis the UNHCR and a single method of working in its decision-taking
bodies

(n) Convention on the safety of expelled
persons against attacks

(o) Convention on mass return following
granting of temporary protection

5.5. Coordinated measures in
the Member States

(a) harmonisation of the Nationality
Law (in particular with regard to time limits for naturalisation,
obstacles to naturalisation, acquisition of nationality by the
second and third generation of immigrants and language knowledge)

(b) harmonisation of the Aliens Law
(in particular with regard to entry documents, sanctions against
illegally resident aliens and deportation)

(c) harmonisation of the Asylum Law
(in particular with regard to details of the procedure and the
benefits the State provides for asylum applicants)

(d) harmonisation of the Immigration
Law (in particular with regard to numerous restrictions, the material
conditions and the procedure for granting authorisations and with
regard to family reunification)

(e) harmonisation of the conditions
of work and residence conditions of foreign workers, determination
of minimum standards

(f) harmonisation of State benefits
to aliens with temporary right of residence and to aliens illegally
resident in the host country

(g) measures to reduce unemployment
amongst third country nationals who are legally resident

(h) measures to support the integration
of legally resident third country nationals, in particular language
teaching

(i) measures to reduce pull factors
which lie outside the rules of aliens and asylum law

(j) measures to prevent and eliminate
secondary migration within the European Union